Gems from the city's past

Stephan Benzkofer and Ron Grossman

The reader response to Chicago Flashback has been wonderful. Since the first week, readers have offered up Flashback ideas based on their own lives, the stories grandma always told and events they remembered from their history lessons. We've used many of them already, but this week we're devoting the whole page to your suggestions. From circus parades and ski resorts to the Girl Scouts and football, here's what your fellow readers shared.

THUNDER MOUNTAIN

The opportunity to enjoy Chicago's only ski resort was as brief as a run down its 285-foot slope. Located at what is now Brickyard Shopping Center on the Northwest Side, the grandly named Thunder Mountain was open for one season, the 1967-68 winter. It boasted the biggest vertical drop of any place within 200 miles, according to a 1967 Tribune story, a feat it managed because skiers started at the top of a man-made hill and ended in the bottom of the clay pit excavated over the decades by the Carey Brick Co. It had three runs, for experts, beginners and intermediates, all served by tow ropes. Owner Robert Carey had big plans for the place, envisioning a five-story chalet on the Diversey Avenue side, toboggan runs, an indoor swimming pool and a hotel. Ski lifts also were planned. The Tribune reported that the family had been enjoying the slopes for a few years before deciding to open it to the public.

But a March 1968 story blamed a horrible lack of snow and "some growing pains" for a first season that was "hardly a smashing success." The ski run never reopened, though the Tribune reported in 1971 that abandoned ski lift poles at the site were used by ham radio operators for a simulated emergency exercise.

Oak Park resident Deb Pastors, who grew up near the site, has been telling people about the ski run for years, she wrote, and "people look at me like I have horns growing from my head. I think the whole brickyard story would be pretty interesting, but the story about the ski hill would be really fascinating."

For the record, the Carey Brick Co. made a fortune for political heavyweight and onetime mayoral candidate Thomas Carey and his family. It was part of a Chicago-area industry that produced 300 million bricks a year. In 1950, the company was fined for using those clay pits as illegal dumps, ending a protracted battle with neighbors. The factory closed about 1960.

The original Brickyard Mall opened in 1978, and the site's brief fling as a ski resort faded into history.

— SB

CIRCUS PARADES

Everybody loves a parade, especially one with elephants, clowns and scantily dressed showgirls. So when the Ringling Brothers Circus came to town, State Street would be lined with "Ladies and Gentlemen and Children of all ages!" as the ringmaster would say. In 1896, the Tribune reported the excitement the circus brought with it, noting a boy perched on a lamppost at State and Randolph streets calling out, "'The circus is coming!' Then, with a blare of trumpets and joyful toodling of the irrepressible steam calliope, the Ringling Brothers Circus paraded down the street."

Ringling Brothers (which merged with Barnum & Bailey's "Greatest Show on Earth" in 1919) inevitably promised that each year's parade would outdo anything Chicagoans had seen in the past. "The street parade will be a spectacular carnival, radically different from anything hitherto seen in the way of circus pageants," the Tribune reported in 1897.

Regardless whether it was 1890, 1930 or 1970, families flocked to see the parades. And interestingly, as early as the turn of the last century, the Tribune reported about the circus parades nostalgically, as golden reminders of the good old days.

In 1983, Circus Vargas decided to kick up the tempo. It organized an elephant race down State Street with media personalities riding atop the pachyderms. What started as a publicity stunt ended badly. Participants assumed it would be played for laughs and a slow walk. But elephants and their handlers are competitive. The instant the race started, the huge beasts galloped down the street.

One rider lost her grip. There's not much to hold onto atop an elephant. Tumbling to the ground, she was badly hurt. Full disclosure: I carried the Tribune's colors in that race. I was fortunate to survive uninjured. All I remember of the experience is a rushing whirl of State Streets sights: MarshallFieldsCarsonsThePalmerHouse….

Editor's note: Thanks to Martin I. Robin of Edgebrook for suggesting this idea.

—RG

THE OTHER FOOTBALL TEAM

Back when halfbacks threw forward passes and fullbacks actually ran with the ball, Chicago had three professional football teams. The Bears and Cardinals were crosstown rivals in the National Football League, and, in the late 1940s, the Rockets were members of an upstart All-America Football Conference, another idea of Arch Ward, the Trib sports editor who gave us baseball's All-Star Game and the College All-Star Game.

The Rockets started with a bang but ended with a whimper. Ward reported of their debut year, 1946: "The advance sale of season tickets for the Chicago Rockets' home games has passed $100,000, the heaviest demand in the history of Chicago football." Three years later the New York Yankees football team came to town with Buddy Young, one of the first professional black players in the sport. He ran for three touchdowns, tying the league's record, before just 17,000 fans.

The Rockets were geographically challenged. Playing in Wrigley Field, the Bears appealed to North Side fans, and Comiskey Park inspired South Siders to root for the Cardinals. Soldier Field had a great view of the lake, but no natural fan base. For their final season, the Rockets changed their name to the Hornets, perhaps hoping to erase memories of past season. That wasn't enough, and the team and the conference folded in 1949. The team remains in the civic consciousness only as a corner bar challenge: "Betcha can't name the football team that played in Soldier Field before the Bears got there."

Editor's note: Thanks to Fidel Lopez for suggesting this idea.

—RG

THE GIRL SCOUTS

On Monday, girls across Chicagoland will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first Girl Scout meeting held by founder Juliette Low in Savannah, Ga. But the party means a little more to area girls who know that Low is the great-granddaughter of John Kinzie, the first permanent white settler here. (As the Tribune stories have made a point of stating through the years, his cabin was very near where Tribune Tower stands today.)

Low arrived in Chicago in April 1920 to unify the various neighborhood groups that had formed, some as early as 1918. The Tribune wrote about one such group in 1935: "Troop No. 1, sponsored by the church of the Immaculate Conception in Norwood Park, claims to be the oldest in the city." According to Patricia Walenga, a volunteer historian with the Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, the troop still exists today, staking a strong claim to being the city's oldest.

That same 1935 story announced the opening of the annual cookie sale. The offering that year? "Wrapped in cellophane, tied with green ribbon and decorated with green and white tags, showing a Girl Scout in full uniform, the cookies will be sold in packages of approximately four dozen at fifteen cents each."

In 1946, the Tribune asked six girls why they were glad to be scouts. All six had insightful responses, but 14-year-old Margaret Hack seemed to sum up the force that is the Girl Scouts when she said, "I love being with girls working towards similar goals."

Editor's note: Thanks to Maja Ramirez of Old Town for suggesting this item.

—SB

THE ATTACK OF THE HATPIN

Chicago is mysterious, if predictably so. That's the moral of the tale suggested by Diane Lally Culhane of Arlington Heights and reported by the Tribune in a Page 1 story.

In August 1915, two policemen were called to the Berghoff restaurant over a fight about the bill. As the winded manager said, "Wine party. All lit up. Won't pay check."

Well, the appearance of the men in blue ended the row. The customers — two couples — paid up and were escorted out. That's when one of the men began lambasting Officer Patrick Lally, or as the Tribune reported, yelling "so picturesquely that women in the crowd of spectators retired beyond earshot." The upshot is that the man threatened to have Lally fired, which prompted the officer to arrest him. At that, the man's female companion attacked Lally with a jeweled hatpin. The Tribune reported, "There was a sparkle of fire as the ring laden hand holding the hatpin flashed back and jabbed forward. 'She's stabbed me!' yelled Lally. 'Grab her!'"

It was only when they all arrived at the station house that it was revealed the woman was Mrs. Florence Kirkpatrick, the estranged wife of a wealthy banker. Nevertheless, she was booked and released on bond. Less than a week later, at the disorderly conduct hearing, the city prosecutor announced the case was being dropped. When asked why, he said the officer did not wish to prosecute.

Not so, says Culhane, claiming that her grandfather, Officer Lally, denied it all. Indeed, Tribune reporters at the time said Lally was present in court with witnesses when the case was suddenly dropped. The prosecutor denied the decision came from his office. The Tribune saw through the farce, writing stories mocking the situation, but, in the end, was left to write the headline, "Nonsuit order in hatpin case remains a mystery."